


In Words And Pictures

by lettertoelise



Category: The 100 (TV), The 100 Series - Kass Morgan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Pining, Romance, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-01 18:17:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6530863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettertoelise/pseuds/lettertoelise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was something Clarke had never really thought much about, the stray marks of ink or paint that would appear on her body - the ones she had no recollection of putting there - the ones that took days to fade.<br/>She hadn’t made the connection until she woke one morning with a black eye and purple marks stretching across her torso, the words - Stop drawing on me - blaze across her forearm. </p><p>Soulmate au where when you write something on your skin with pen/marker/whatever the hell you want, it will show up on your soul mates skin as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing for the Bellarke fandom. Hope you like it! Hugs to EzWriter, my faithful beta and outline contributor!

It was something Clarke had never really thought much about, the stray marks of ink or paint that would appear on her body - the ones she had no recollection of putting there - the ones that took days to fade.  

 

She hadn’t made the connection until she woke one morning with a black eye and purple marks stretching across her torso, the words -  _ Stop drawing on me _ \- blaze across her forearm.  When Clarke was eight it had become standard practice for girls her age to giggle and draw flowers on their skin, adorning themselves with blossoms behind their ears or dropped above each knuckle.  That same decorated hand was now speckled with red and blue-violet bruises that her mother eyed in alarm, her frantic fingers trailing up Clarke’s face to trace the dark patterns painted there.  

 

“It doesn’t hurt, mom,” Clarke had said, trying desperately to smooth the anxious crease forging itself in her mother’s brow.  

 

“But I saw you before you went bed.  I kissed you goodnight . . .,” Abby wondered aloud, “Clarke, dear, it looks like you’ve been in a fight.”

 

The initial examination had shown nothing wrong, just a random skin anomaly, but Clarke seemed the only one who’d noticed the words past the bruising, the tight slanted script in all caps.  It took two days for the message to fade when she finally decided to write back.

 

_ Sorry. _

 

Then she waited.  And watched.

 

About a half hour later she looked down at her arm to find:   _ Are you a ghost? _

 

_ No.  I’m a girl.  What are you? _

 

_ I’m a boy. _

 

It was the day they’d met and day they’d reached an agreement.  No writing.  No drawing.

 

***

 

By the time Bellamy was in high school his mother was on her third boyfriend in four years, they were on their fifth town, Octavia, his little sister, was on her sixth school, and he was slipping.  He had become an expert at fading into the background, hoping no one would notice his chronic tardiness as he slid into class after dropping Octavia off at school, or his stack of missing assignments, neglected in favor of cooking dinner and helping O with her homework.  

 

He simply didn’t have time to attend to the unexplained doodles periodically coloring his skin.  They were annoyance.  A distraction.  Until they became  _ flowers. _  Flowers that would materialize on his hands, peppering his forearms.  Even if he managed to pull his sleeves down over his knuckles, the flowers would pop up on his neck or even his cheek.  It became impossible to stay inconspicuous.  

 

Eventually they cornered him in the bathroom.  Bellamy wasn’t small, but he was a thin, gangly mess of arms and legs, and even he was surprised when his fist connected with the other boy’s face.  He was ambushed, shoved to the floor under a hailstorm of boots until a teacher finally barged in and marched them all down to the office.  

 

It became a pattern after that, walking through days, waiting to be jumped.  But Bellamy grew quicker, stronger, laying more blows and spending more time in the principal’s office.  

 

The conversations on his skin were drowned out by a blanket of bruises - he simply didn’t have time to worry about the girl on the other side.  

 

***

 

It wasn’t until Clarke turned 18 that she broke the silence.

 

_ What if I want a tattoo? _  She wrote carefully, somewhere he would be sure to notice.  Delicate letters in thin loops across her right thigh.    

 

_ Absolutely not _ , came the reply.   _ I’m not living with your tramp stamp. _

 

Clarke quirked an eyebrow.  Whoever he was, he wasn’t one to mince words.  She tried again.

 

_ I’ll get something we can both agree on? _

 

_ Sorry, Princess, but that’s a no. _

 

It had been a test as much as an honest inquiry.  Was he still there, lurking just underneath the surface?  It had been a while since Clarke had awoken covered in purple battle scars, her knuckles red and raw.  Either his temper had relaxed or he’d disappeared and, to be honest, she wasn’t sure which one she would have preferred.  

 

But his bold, cramped letters flashed all the evidence she’d needed across her skin.  Clarke decided to annoy him sometimes when she was bored, doodling on herself in obvious places while in line at the store or on the front steps of her house waiting for Wells to come pick her up for the movies.  

 

His retaliations were always a surprise, sometimes an awful reciprocal drawing of his own (he was hardly an artist, she discovered), sometimes a terrible joke written straight across the planes of her chest, or the worst was when he would do nothing at all, her skin left blank and empty in his absence.  

 

***

 

Octavia was the first to notice.  

 

“Bell, why are you always drawing on yourself.  It’s really weird.”  She was stooped over her bowl at the breakfast table, glaring at the cartoon penguin in a tux that brandished his wrist.        

 

He didn’t answer, but she didn’t look surprised.  It was just the two of them now, his mother had left with her new love on a weekend trip and never returned.  It hadn’t changed life much, but they barely scraped by.  Bellamy found himself working any job that would hire him, grounds worker by day, dishwasher by night.  It didn’t matter.  It was never enough.  

 

At first he hated the drawings.  Every day he would notice another, a dapper crocodile above his left ankle, a shark clad in a sweater vest, swimming casually over his clavicle.  He hid them under long sleeves, even on warm days, prompting quizzical looks at his strange attire.  But leave it to Octavia to actually  _ ask _ .  

 

She seemed to even be cataloging them.  

 

“This one’s new,” she said, reaching over to tug down the collar of his t-shirt and reveal an octopus sporting a top hat.  

 

“Drop it, O,” he growled and pushed himself up from the table.  He couldn’t figure out why she did it, this irritating mystery girl who shared his skin - after all, she had to wear the terrible illustrations too.  But sometimes he imagined a smile behind those drawings, one that delighted in teasing him, eyes that flashed in the face of the challenge, and he thought maybe, they might be friends.  

 

*** 

Her father died just before graduation.  It was a car crash, swift and final.  In the aftermath, Clarke forgot how to breathe.  She forgot how to eat.  She forgot how to draw.  On the good days, she could make herself get out of bed, go to school.  On the bad - there was just nothing.  She was a blank canvas.

 

It was about a month before she noticed the poetry trailing down her leg, across her breastbone.  The familiar incline of his rigid letters stood out against the white porcelain of her skin and Clarke just stared at them.  She traced them with her fingers, she imagined the strong hand behind the pen and the clever mind that dictated its purpose.  

 

It required more energy than it should have, but she reached for a marker.  

 

_ Thank you _

 

***

  
  


Everything shifted after that. The gentle teasing had slowed with time, relaxing into the lazy landscapes she painted into her side or across her stomach.  He would reply in hastily scrawled lines of verse, twisting the words over the curve of her hip bone or winding them down the side of her calf.  When she was lonely, he would write stories in small letters, reaching from the inside of her wrist to her elbow.  When she was sad, she would draw the tears across her open palm and he would respond in notes pressed between her fingers.  She liked the constant reminders scattered across her body - their shared canvas.  He was with her always.  

 

Clarke was a senior in college when she met Octavia Blake, the vocal brunette who sat behind her in ethics class.  She had strong opinions she wasn’t afraid to share, and Clarke liked her immediately.  

 

Friendships hadn’t been something that aged well with Clarke.  The wealth of her family had been alienating to most except Wells, but even he had long since moved on to an ivy league school with a posh internship and a posh girlfriend.  There had been Finn, in whom she’d found herself fleetingly in love until she met his girlfriend and the fire was quickly extinguished.  But mostly Clarke had found herself alone, filling her days with books and paint and  _ him _ .  

 

It was almost jarring at first, the intensity of Octavia’s enthusiasm, the way she approached every problem like a challenge.  But it was hard not to be caught up in the warmth of her glow, and Clarke was suddenly thrust among strangers, the vagabonds and delinquents that made up Octavia’s circle of friends.  

 

There were Monty and Jasper, inseparable and almost always ridiculous, laughing at their own jokes and usually committing some sort of light vandalism.  There was Murphy, sour faced and mean, who often sat with a serious, older boy named Miller and avoided Clarke entirely.  There was Raven, strong, beautiful and smarter than all of them, she wore her heart on her sleeve and was not afraid.  

 

And then there was Bellamy, Octavia’s brother.  He worked tending bar at a dive off campus.  He’d  smile when they came in and refused to serve Monty and Jasper anything other than soda until they could provide an id that wasn’t fake.  He was a lot like his sister, tall and dark with a passion that rumbled in the baritone of his voice and lived in the fire of his eyes.  He watched over all of them, pacing Murphy before he became belligerent, solving puzzles with Raven and Miller at the bar, and shooting dangerous looks to any male getting too close to his sister.  

 

When it was slow, he would press himself against the tired wooden counter, weight resting in his elbows with a book propped between his open hands.  It was a worn copy of the Iliad, yellow with age and dog eared on the corners.  He would squint, forehead crinkling as he pulled his eyebrows together in concentration.  

 

“I think you need glasses,” Clarke said once, hoisting herself up on a bar stool and leaning forward to peek impishly around the cover of the book.

 

“Did you need something?”  Bellamy responded, his voice low and flat.  His hair was too long, Clarke decided, observing the way it fell in dark waves almost long enough to hang in his eyes.  He looked up to stare at her over the top of his paperback, unflinching.  

 

“I mean, you’re still squinting but the book isn’t that far away.  When was your last eye appointment?”

 

“Never.”

 

It was jarring, his curt response, coupled with the return of his gaze to the page.  Clarke let out a small huff and sat up.

 

“Suit yourself.”

 

“I will.”

 

***

 

Octavia collected wayward souls the way some people collected shoes.  She’d started by dragging home Monty and Jasper, stoned and unwashed to sleep off a night of drunken excitement on their living room floor.  Bellamy had rolled his eyes, but let it slide.  Then came Miller, the neighbor Octavia had recruited to pirate their cable.  His roommate Murphy was an asshole, but somehow they’d both managed to become part of the gang.  When Raven showed up at the bar one night, full of spark and temerity, Octavia had adopted her on the spot.  

 

But Clarke.  Clarke was different.  She walked in with an authority she hadn’t earned, composed of soft lines and a proud chin.  She’d sauntered over with a smile playing on her lips, beckoning him with a confident twitch of her blonde head.

 

“I’ll take an old fashioned.”             

 

He’d hesitated, eyebrows lifting in skeptical amusement.  She was a foreign creature, this girl, cavalier with her head held tall as she scanned the crowd.   

 

“I can order something else if that’s too complicated,” she continued, flapping her hand in dismissal.  Bellamy snuffed and she turned to look at him.

 

“Slow down, Princess.  I know how to make an old fashioned,” he answered unmoved and not without a good measure of snark, throwing the bar rag over his shoulder.  She looked surprised but he just raised his eyebrows with a curt, “What?”

 

“You’re not the only one to call me that, that’s all.”  Her voice was strange but Bellamy just shrugged.

 

“Princess?  Maybe it’s a sign you should change your attitude.”  He set the drink down before her unceremoniously.  “There you go.  One old fashioned.”

 

Her smile had returned, ironic and shrewd as she raised the glass to her lips.  “Octavia warned me about you.”  

 

“Good.”

 

***

 

The apartment was small and sparsely furnished, half of the party forced to sit on the floor in a crude circle, plates balanced on their laps.  Murphy and Miller were competing at MarioKart while Raven critiqued their form and when Monty and Jasper arrived, mud soaked and dripping, Octavia barked at them to leave their boots by the door.  

 

It had become a sort of comfortable normalcy, dinner at the Blake’s.  Clarke’s mother, despite being well-intentioned, had never been good at family meals.  Always home late and stressed, her father had taken over dinner time and became particularly adept at ordering Clarke’s favorite carry out.  Father and daughter had often sat together, deviously leaning elbows on the table while they ate with their fingers and shared news of the day, trading conspiratorial winks.  After he died, everything had changed.

 

Bellamy brought out a dish of sliced cheese, bread, and orange wedges to tide over the masses before retreating back to the kitchen.  He looked ridiculous in his novelty apron with the words “Shittake Happens” printed across the chest, messy dark hair still too long and falling in his eyes, a pleased smirk teasing the edges of his mouth.     

 

Absentmindedly Clarke followed, stopping to lean herself against the doorframe and rest her hands at her hips.  It had become a habit, following Bellamy.  He was almost always cranky, his disposition generally acerbic, full of snark and smarm, but Clarke somehow found herself tugged into his orbit, unable to resist the force of her desire to correct him or scold him or, sometimes, even make him smile.  

Tipped over the large pot boiling on the stove, Bellamy dunked a finger in the brine and slid it into his mouth.  It had surprised Clarke - despite his general boarish manner, Bellamy in the kitchen was a coordinated dance, all calculated precision mixed with a taste of something more reckless.  Resting the spoon in its cradle, he seamlessly flicked open a cabinet and reached for the salt, revealing, Clarke noticed with a blush, a hint of bronze skin over the edge of his belt.   

 

“Like the view, Princess, or were you going to offer to help?”  Looking up from his pot with a second finger in his mouth, Bellamy’s lips pulled into a lopsided, self-contented grin. 

 

“Whatever you’re making smells really good.”  

 

With a mischievous nod, he dropped a knuckle of garlic into her palm and inclined his head in the direction of the cutting board.

 

“Go nuts,” he said, returning to the stove to tend to some sort of sauce just beginning to simmer.  

 

They worked in an easily broken silence, Bellamy rolling his eyes in false exasperation as Clarke struggled to pick the paper from the garlic and halting her sloppy chopping to turn the knife sideways and crush the clove with his fist pressed against the flat blade.  Clarke laughed at his meticulousness where he grunted at her lack of it, and somehow it was one routine snide remark that tipped the balance.  She was doubled over in stitches while Bellamy indignantly wiped the tomato guts off his face.  

 

“What the hell,” he grumbled, flicking the slimy mess into the trash.    

 

Clarke was gasping for air, groping desperately at the counter for support.  

 

“Laugh all you want,” he continued, “But you’re banished.”  

 

Bellamy’s voice was stern but there was ruse to it and as much as he made the move to push her from the kitchen, his rule was not enforced.  Perhaps it was the way amusement played in his dark eyes, belying the annoyance of his crossed arms and firmly set jaw, but Clarke kept finding herself with excuses to invade his territory, sneaking in to steal wedges of mozzarella, to test a noodle, or to dip a spoon into whatever delicious concoction was bubbling in the saucepan.  

 

It would have been a game, if they were friends.  

 

***

She had held her breath the first time Finn pulled off his shirt, convinced, in part, she’d discover the patterns beneath, left there by her own hand.  Instead he was pink and bare, laughing at the words he found swirling her navel and shaking his head.  Clarke found she couldn’t explain it to him, why she had felt so certain this boy with whom she’d fallen in love, this boy with the flowing brown hair and penetrating gaze, had to be the one.  But he wasn’t.  

 

She’d been more cautious after that, shielding herself from the disappointment.  Partners were easy to come by, but none enough to stick.  

 

The more  _ he _ wrote to her, the more she wondered, the more questions pressed against the surface.

 

_ Do you want to know my name?  _  She wrote one night, in cursive on the inside of her wrist.  

 

_ No _ .

 

Clarke frowned, curling her hand around his response.  After a moment, he continued.   _ Because I’m afraid you’re real _ .    

 

Then his script turned into stars, organized in two figures she recognized immediately.  Gemini.  In their secret language of words and pictures, it was the constellation he saved for her.  Clarke traced the careful lines with her index finger and pulled back.  

 

Delicately, she placed the pen to her skin, encompassing his skies with a heart. 

 

***      

 

Clarke.  Despite his best efforts, the name was on his tongue, circling his brain and she was everywhere - laughing with Octavia and Raven at the bar, stretched across his couch yelling obscenities at Murphy, or caught remorselessly red handed in his kitchen, fingers deep in a container of leftovers.  

 

Bellamy hears her voice in his ears as he steps out of the optometrist’s office (turns out he’s farsighted) and it’s even worse when she nudges him at the bar to tell him the glasses make him look old.  

 

Somehow, it was no surprise when he found her, sitting on the counter in his kitchen, prodding yesterday’s tuna salad with her fork.  

 

“Don’t you have your own food?”  He asked, scoffing and leaning over to push the refrigerator door shut as Clarke’s fork took another nose dive into the bowl.  

 

“Yeah, but it doesn’t taste like this.  What the hell did you put in here?”  Clarke replied between bites.  He grinned despite himself.  

 

“I add mashed white beans for texture and some cumin.  You like it?”

 

Clarke rolled her eyes.  “You already know.  I’m not going to feed your ego.”

 

He chuckled and settled his weight against the counter opposite, arms sliding into place across his chest.

 

“I’m not even going to ask how you got in.  Octavia’s not home.”

 

“I know.”  She replied casually, looking up with a pleased glint in her eye.  “I came to talk to you.”

 

Bellamy lifted his eyebrows, intrigued.  Clarke had this way of always throwing him off balance - goading him with her subtle brand of boldness.  She wasn’t like him, born with fire in his veins, prone to impulse and raw emotion.  She was pure calculated irritation.  

 

Clarke had crept beneath his skin and made her home there - she called him on his temper and breached his space with confident ownership, challenging him on every shakey opinion (and every firm one).  He could feel the tension gather between his shoulders, the annoyance building in his throat and then - then she slid from her perch on the counter with a playful grin, sweeping the gold hair back out of her face - she was humming softly to herself as she plunked the empty dish in the sink, twitching her hips back and forth to some internal rhythm - and by the time she finally turned to him, the animosity had been extinguished . . . only to be replaced by a new kind of fire.  

 

“You have to promise not to freak out.”

 

Clarke’s words redirected him from the graceful curve of her neck, the swell of her hips against a slender waist.  He shook his head.    

 

“Should I be sitting down?” He asked, teasing.  Her expression turned serious.  

 

“Probably.”

 

They made their way to the couch, sitting like bookends with Clarke on one side, feet tucked up underneath her, and Bellamy on the other, sprawled with his legs open wide and his arms stretched out against the railing.  

 

“Octavia has a boyfriend.”  

 

“What?  Why wouldn’t she tell me herself?” He shot, fiercely. 

 

The news drove him to his feet, Bellamy finding himself suddenly pacing with a hand angrily pulling through his hair. 

 

Clarke raised an eyebrow.  “You know why.”

 

Bellamy scoffed in spite of himself, his expression shifting from ire to suspicion.  “Why are you telling me this?”

 

Clarke was biting her lower lip, shifting slightly as she turned her body to confront his towering figure.  “This is a peacekeeping mission, Bellamy.  She wants to bring him to the bar tomorrow night and I thought there might be fireworks if you found out she’d been keeping this from you.”  Then Clarke paused, her voice softening.  “I didn’t think you would appreciate being blindsided.”

 

The deafening pound of his pulse suddenly slowed, and there was Clarke, all pleading smiles and blue eyes.  He swallowed his shock.  

 

“Thanks.”  Bellamy’s voice was coarse, but she didn’t flinch.  

 

“If it’s worth anything, if you give him a chance, you might actually like the guy,” she said wryly.  

 

“You think so?” He matched her tone and against his better judgement, he could feel his lips twisting into a grin.  

 

“Yeah.  I do.”  She trailed off playfully before she added, “Except that he’s 28.”

 

“What?!”  

 

Bellamy snapped his head around, eyes blown wide in anger, but Clarke’s laughter was the rainfall, trampling his rage.

 

***

Bellamy had tried to keep his cool, he really did.  But his sister had been dwarfed by the giant man she’d drawn carefully to the bar and introduced as Lincoln, whose age was betrayed by the angles of his face and the maturity in his eyes - all in sharp contrast to Octavia’s youthful exuberance and soft edges.  Lincoln’s enormous hand was wrapped possessively around her small waist, his fingers spread wide against her hip, and Bellamy just . . . couldn’t.  Octavia was his sister, protecting her was woven into every part of him.  

 

He’d tried to keep voice even.  He’d tried to shake the man’s hand.  But it all came out backwards, his words terse and his fist wouldn’t unclench.  In the light of the bar Octavia’s face bloomed red with anger, her small frame shaking, but when she grabbed Lincoln and  pulled him away to her usual table, he knew it was over.  And worse, Bellamy could see it in the disappointment painted across Clarke’s face.

 

O came home that night only to pack her bag and leave, stopping in the living room when Bellamy’s hand reached out to grab her by the wrist.  

“I’m just trying to look out for you, like I’ve always done, O.”  His voice came out bitter, needy.

 

She scoffed, ripping her hand away.  “Well you can stop, big brother.  I’m 21 fucking years old, I can take care of myself.”

 

It was his turn to roll his eyes.  “Right.  Just like you pay the rent?  Like you pay for school?”

 

Octavia’s outrage burned bright, her eyes flashing but her voice was low.  “I never asked for any of this.”  

 

Throwing the bag over her shoulder, she stormed out, the door slamming behind her.  

 

A half hour later the text came, Bellamy fumbling with his phone in a haze of alcohol and regret.  

 

[Clarke]:  She’s here.  She’s safe.

 

[Bellamy]:  Thanks

 

[Clarke]:  You’re still an ass.  

 

***

 

Clarke wasn’t sure when or how it happened.  She wasn’t sure when seeking him out became intentional instead of unconscious, when his smile became the one that lit the room.  

 

Clarke wasn’t sure when she first noticed the freckles scattered like stars across his nose or that when he wasn’t cooking, he was reading, and when he wasn’t reading, he was fretting.  

 

Bellamy was the most serious person she’d met without being serious.  He broadcast his emotions through his eyes - until he didn’t.  He was a riddle, and when she wasn’t looking, Bellamy Blake became her friend.  

 

The war between the siblings had quieted with time - in that mysterious way arguments do between siblings, burning bright before running out of oxygen and succumbing bitterly to the love lurking beneath.

 

Miller and Murphy were hosting the party this time, their apartment mirroring the Blakes but two floors up.  It was slightly dingier, their couch slightly more sunken.  There was pizza and booze and Bellamy had also provided a much appreciated vat of homemade hummus and a swath of chopped veg.  

 

Draped across Lincoln’s lap, Octavia was owning them all at Apples 2 Apples while Murphy was spread out in the lopsided armchair with a guitar on his lap.  His voice was surprisingly nice, coarse and folksy, finding the chorus as he mindlessly picked the notes.  

 

Clarke located Bellamy on the small veranda, sitting with his legs threaded between the rails and swung over the side.  His dark mop of hair glowed in the light of the street lamp and he overlooked the parking lot the way one would stare at the open ocean, unflinching and bold.  

 

“It’s freezing out here,” Clarke complained, settling herself down beside him and pressing a bent knee into his thigh.  Bellamy chuckled, a deep vibration in his chest, and casually shrugged off his jacket to pass in her direction.    

 

He’d already raised a hand to cut off her protest.  “Stop.  I  _ can _ be a gentleman.”

 

Clarke rolled her eyes playfully and slipped the garment over her shoulders, delighting at its warm embrace.  “Right.  The next time you say something incredibly offensive and rude - I will remember this and forgive you.”

 

They were silent for a while.  Bellamy’s fingers twisted at the label on his bottle before bringing it to his lips.  He was handsome, sure, but somehow, face soft and shadowed in the artificial light, he was almost ethereal.  

 

Bellamy cleared his throat and Clarke realized she’d been staring.  

 

“So, um, how’d it go with your mom’s visit?” He asked, voice cracking under the weight of her gaze.  He shifted, almost  _ squirming _ .  Was he nervous?  

 

Clarke sighed and looked away.  “She wants me to continue on to medical school after this semester.  We had a fight.”

 

She paused, sipping at her beer.  Two days with Abby had felt like an eternity, the first half of her visit spent in tentative, blanched conversation, the second half consumed with arguments.  It wasn’t even necessarily that Clarke had changed her mind about becoming a doctor, she just felt - stuck.  Trapped between who she was and the person she could be.  

 

“I don’t know what I want.”

 

Bellamy rested his bottle on the ground.  “Maybe you don’t have to.  You could take time off, get some job around here until you figure it out.”  And then he added, quietly, “I know Octavia wouldn’t complain about you sticking around.”

 

She felt a fond smile creep across her face and Clarke couldn’t help but weave her arm under his and lean her head against his shoulder.  “That sounds nice,” she responded, airily.  Then, propping up her chin to look at him, she continued, “And what about you?  When are you going back to school?”

 

Bellamy chuckled mirthlessly and dipped his head.  “Right.”

 

“I’m serious, Bellamy,” Clarke insisted, popping up to face him.  “You could go to culinary school, open up your own restaurant or something.”

 

“That’s not who I am, Princess,” he replied, his usual snark sneaking into replace the previous warmth in his voice.  He was pulling away, straightening himself against her, his eyes still fixed on the distant treeline.  

 

“I don’t believe that.  You can’t tell me that you’re satisfied, just being a bartender.”  Clarke stopped.  She’d pushed too hard and he’d bristled, his walls thrown back up.  Bellamy didn’t respond.  He didn’t need to.  

 

The silence settled on their shoulders, it’s weight hanging off every unspoken sentence.  Clarke grabbed her beer to drain the contents and dangle the bottle over her lap, and she almost jumped when Bellamy suddenly grabbed her wrist to pull it closer.  

 

His fingers hovered over lines scribbled there in blue ink, a short poem about Icarus left in familiar, slanted handwriting.  Before Clarke could say anything he’d let her go, his face blank as he pushed himself to his feet.  

 

“Goodnight, Clarke,” he said, softly, before closing the glass door behind him.  

  
  



	2. Part II

 

The meager light provided by his clock was enough to make out the script in the dark.  Bellamy couldn’t sleep - he just stared.  The poem he’d written on his wrist, the same poem he’d seen etched across Clarke’s skin, it taunted him.  

But Icarus had learned not to fly too high.  And Clarke?  Clarke was the sun.  

 

In hindsight he should have realized sooner.  The challenge he’d come to expect from the girl on the other side of those flowers once painted on his cheeks or the ridiculous cartoon animals she’d left dotted over his arms, had only ever been mirrored in the eyes of one towheaded, outspoken and bold Clarke Griffin.  

It shouldn’t have surprised him that this girl was immune to his dark looks and exasperated sighs.  She’d been teasing him through his skin for years.  

Bellamy had wanted to tell her when he came home to find Clarke in the eye of a hurricane of books and notes, spread out across his living room floor.  She’d quirked a defensive eyebrow when he’d stopped to investigate, as though _he_ was the unexpected intruder.  

 

“I have mid-terms this week,” she explained without being asked.  “And you have food.”

 

Bellamy had just shrugged and moved on to deposit the groceries in the kitchen, grabbing a book and a plate of sliced apples and cinnamon.  When he returned, ready to roll up his sleeves and reveal his secret, it was Clarke’s smile that threw him off his task, stealing his purpose and the words to express it.  

 

“See?  Why would I study anywhere else?” she asked slyly, popping a wedge in her mouth, grin as wide as the cheshire cat’s.  And he found he wasn’t ready to break that spell.  

  


Bellamy had wanted to tell her that day at the park.  It was unseasonably warm and they’d all found themselves forced outdoors with a football and Miller’s small charcoal grill.  Monty and Jasper were finding things to melt while Raven surprised them all with a bag of marshmallows, some chocolate, and a box of graham crackers.  

 

Clarke was prodding him with her elbow as she waved her stick over the fire.  “C’mon, Bellamy, you have to make one.”

 

Sneering, Octavia grabbed a marshmallow to crown her stick.  “I wouldn’t bother.  Big brother doesn’t like chocolate.  Or marshmallows.  Or fun.”  

 

Bellamy had responded with a knowing nod of the head, all mock seriousness, until Clarke was suddenly in his space with a s’more, the white marshmallow filling spilling out the sides and looking entirely unappealing.

 

“Just try it.”

 

Bellamy shook his head.  “It’s all yours, Princess.”

 

“Seriously, I won’t leave you alone until you eat this.”  Clarke was all business, her jaw set and brow creased, holding the desert out in front of his face like a trophy.  But Bellamy brushed her away carelessly.

 

“No dice, Clarke.  Go bother someone else.  Look, Murphy is over there, perfectly unannoyed.”

 

Clarke’s laugh played on the breeze and she leaned slightly to gently bump his shoulder with her own.  It was with the smallest incline of her head that she whispered, “But you’re my favorite,” before taking a bite herself and waltzing off back to the fire.  

 

As Bellamy watched her dip her sticky fingers in her mouth, lips smirking upward in his direction, he thought he might tell her.  He thought he might grab a pen and write her name on the back of one hand and his name on the other.  He thought he might write a poem to capture the gold of the sun in her hair and the blue of her eyes.  

 

But again he thought of Icarus.  Because, wouldn’t she be disappointed to find the big mystery revealed with only him on the other side.  Because girls like her don’t belong with boys like him.  

 

So instead, his poems took on a new color, expressing in metaphor the hopes he’d barely admitted to himself.  He left riddles on her ankles, on her shoulders, the insides of her wrists and all those secret places he would kiss if he could touch the sun.     

  


***

 

Clarke Griffin accepted that there were many ways to know a person.  And she did know him, in that sort of vague, accumulated way one does when sharing secrets on your own flesh for over a decade.  

 

She knows he used to get in fights, but hasn’t in a long time.  She knows he is a terrible artist, limited to the simplest drawings of stars and sometimes figures.  She knows he likes folklore, especially Greek and Roman - but the tales of heroes and conquest he once told have matured into something different, something sweet.  Something dangerous.    

 

She knows he stops writing sometimes, and when he returns, he won’t tell her why.  She knows it makes her cry, but she’ll never tell him.    

 

In some ways Clarke has loved him ever since she was eight, surprised by the callous nature with which he’d first treated their connection, and she knows she loves him now, his poetry and his stories.  She loves the way he hides them on her body like it’s a game.

 

But as much as Clarke has catalogued the details, puzzling out the person behind the pen, it’s the things she doesn’t know that pain her the most.  Does his laughter rumble in his chest like a wave crashing on the beach?  Do his eyes crinkle in the corners when he smiles?  

 

He was with her - he was always with her - but he was a ghost.     

 

***

 

It was getting warmer and the group was changing.  First, there was the addition of Lincoln and Octavia was - happy.  She was alive and vibrant with far more energy than any human could justify without being in love.  Even Bellamy had noticed, shrugging at the bar one night when Clarke had confronted him.  

 

“He loves her.  She could do worse,” he’d confided with his customary lopsided grin.  

 

Then there were Monty and Jasper, slowly drifting from their usual partnership.  Jaspar had met a girl, a pretty and shy young thing named Maya, and in his absence suddenly there was Miller, shooting Monty heart eyes Clarke had never noticed before.  There was a symmetry there, Millers rough edges softened by Monty’s quiet gentleness and the two boys would steal off to the table with matching smiles, the echo of their laughter bleeding through the clamor of voices in large room.  

 

When Clarke mentioned it to Bellamy he only responded with more nonchalant shrugs, more knowing grins, and she would narrow her eyes at him for being so smug.

 

Raven had won an award for her contributions to the engineering department, and they were all celebrating - Bellamy keeping her supplied with drinks and Jasper maintaining the constant flow of hits from the jukebox.  Monty and Miller were leaning into one another in the corner, hands clasped conspiratorily under the table, while Murphy was explaining something to a very patient Lincoln, Octavia rolling her eyes.  It was the gang at it’s best, contented and slightly inebriated and Clarke couldn’t help but feel bold.  Their peace was her comfort and she revelled in Octavia’s bored yawn and clandestine winks, Jaspar’s awkward flirting and Monty’s beating heart.  

 

But the evening wasn’t complete without watching  Bellamy’s lips curl into a furtive smile, amused by her antics.  It seemed cold without his searching expression and self-satisfied wit doing their best to make the sun rise in Clarke’s chest.  But he was never difficult to find.  

 

The bar was almost empty and Bellamy Blake, man of predictable patterns and unexpected warmth, was leaning with Raven over a crossword such that their foreheads were almost touching, the two left bickering over who had the authority over the pen.  It was something about the familiar way they passed the paper back and forth, the proximity of their shoulders, that made Clarke blink as she caught them out of the corner of her eye, a tightness manifesting itself in her lungs as Raven’s head dipped back in laughter.      

 

Glancing around at her other happily paired off friends, Clarke found herself suddenly dragging a bar stool next to the two, tilting her head with fabricated interest and interjecting, “You guys need a hand with that?”

 

Bellamy rolled himself back, setting his shoulders in mock skepticism.  “Crossword puzzles too, Princess?  Is there anything you can’t do?”

 

She made to glare at him, but Raven was already pulling her over for assistance, twining an arm around her elbow.  “Bellamy won’t let me use the pen,” she pouted, resting a drunken chin on Clarke’s shoulder, “He says I have to use pencil until I sober up.”

 

Clarke chuckled and smoothed her friend’s hair affectionately.  Pulling her into a hug, Raven let out a satisfied sigh.

 

“I think she might be done.  How many drinks did you feed the poor girl?”  Clarke asked with amusement, catching the tail of Bellamy’s crooked smile.  

 

“I cut her off about half a crossword ago,” he answered slyly, tucking the pen behind his ear.  And she was caught, suspended in the playful dance of those dark eyes - caution tangled with  something else.  Something Clarke couldn’t place. Suddenly Octavia was at her shoulder, easing a listless Raven to her feet.  

 

“Lincoln and I are going to drop this one off at home, I think.  Clarke - you need a ride?”

 

Clarke jumped at the words.  “Um.  Sure I guess.  Yeah.  Thanks,” she responded and she felt scattered, shaking her head to clear the fog.  

 

Lincoln propped Raven easily on his arm and Octavia led the way, but Clarke - she couldn’t help but look back over her shoulder before chasing them out the door, those dark eyes still pinning her to the wall.  

 

***    

 

Bellamy swallowed hard when he saw her, skimpy bikini top, skin bared and littered with writing - _his_ writing.   He forced his gaze to the shore as Clarke strolled across the sand, Jasper and Monty in tow, shorts barely covering the delicate patterns she’d left wandering on her thighs.  

 

They’d set up above the reach of the tide, chairs propped under the shade of Raven’s oversized umbrella and a few enormous beach towels spread out to catch their bags.  

 

“Hey,” Clarke called, nodding at the long sleeves of his henley, “You miss the memo about this being the beach?”

 

“Really?”  Bellamy couldn’t help but huff.  “You’re showing enough skin for both of us.”

 

She stuck out her tongue and bent over to grab a frisbee from a worn canvas bag, revealing the long line of stars he’d left trailing across the curve of her hip.  Any way he could have imagined his ink on her body couldn’t rival this - the dark lines popping against smooth porcelain.  If she noticed the way he took her in, like she was magic, spun of gold silk and sass, she didn’t leave any indication, dismissing him with playful annoyance and bounding off down the beach to join the rest of the group.     

 

It was O that woke him, walking across the sand with determination before taking Clarke’s arm and lifting it with interest.  Without thinking, Bellamy was on his feet, scrambling in their direction as he heard his sister ask, “Is that my br-”

 

“O!” Bellamy cut her off, jogging over to hook her by the elbow and pull her away.  “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

 

He could tell Clarke was squinting at them, even from behind her giant sunglasses, forehead knit with intrigue, but he turned as he led his sister to the opposite end of the bank.    

 

“What the hell, Bellamy?!”  Octavia hissed, shrugging him off with exasperation.  “Why are you writing all over Clarke?”

 

“It’s not-” he started, only to stop in his tracks to regain his composure.  “It’s not like that.  She doesn’t know it’s me.”

 

Octavia’s mouth fell open slightly.  She clearly thought he was insane.  Glancing around cautiously, he positioned himself to give them more privacy and rolled up his sleeve.  His forearm was covered in the same intricately plotted patchwork garishly displayed on Clarke, her drawings woven amongst his poetry.  Octavia held it up for closer inspection, skeptical, as always.  

 

“When I write on myself, it shows up on her skin and vice versa.  I can’t explain it.”

 

Octavia was just staring at him, his arm still poised between her dissatisfied fingers.  “That’s impossible.”

 

Raking his free hand over his chin, Bellamy was too panicked to avoid the serious intensity that crept into his voice.  “I know.”

 

She released him and and pulled back to roll down the sleeve of his shirt.  They were both staring in opposite directions, her thoughtful expression mirroring in his own, more masculine version, until finally she laughed.

 

“So this whole time - you weren’t the one drawing those ridiculous cartoons on yourself?”  And she was smiling, eyes twinkling and seemingly charmed with this new revelation.  She kept going, “And I guess that explains all your weird-ass fashion choices.  Seriously?  Who wears long sleeves to the beach?”

 

He shushed her, the volume of her voice increasing with the depth of her realization.  “You can’t tell her,” he warned, his voice low and dangerous.  Octavia, of course, remained unfazed.  

 

“This shit’s crazy,” she said, half with disbelief, as she broke away and swiveled back toward their friends.  “And Bellamy,” she called over her shoulder, “You’re an idiot.”

 

***

 

Clarke doesn’t notice at first, the small kindnesses that accumulate over time - her favorite leftovers packed separate and labelled with her name in the fridge, the extra blanket that appears on the couch in her spot.  Bellamy has started buying milk even though she’s the only one who drinks it and she finds he’s started to record her favorite shows even though she doesn’t live there.  He’d switched brands after the first time she used their machine for laundry and found their detergent made her itch.  He made pancakes on the mornings after she passed out on Octavia’s bed.  

 

She sees how he takes care of Octavia too, how he helps her into bed if she’s had too much to drink with a glass of water left on her nightstand.  She sees the way Bellamy comes to life when his sister is pleased, when she ruffles his hair or wraps her arms tightly around his waist.  

 

It was Bellamy on the edges of things, quietly filling holes no one else could see.  He leaves extra beer in Miller’s fridge and picks Jasper up from work when his car won’t start.  He laughs at Raven’s jokes or lends himself as Murphy's punching bag on a bad day.  Octavia may have adopted them, but it was Bellamy who kept them all together.

 

So when Octavia moved out in May, it hit him hard.  Lincoln had a house and she was spending most of her nights there anyway, but Bellamy’s face was drawn when Octavia started boxing her things, sorting possessions between “His” and “Hers” when it had always been “Theirs”.  He caved inward, didn’t speak, just paced - a vision of crossed arms and earnest eyebrows.  

 

Clarke placed a soothing hand on his shoulder but it did nothing to calm the restlessness that lurked there, his body tensing beneath her fingers.  He was like a storm brewing, the dark cloud on the horizon.  Silent and explosive.        

      

But when Octavia left with the last box, the fire went out.  Bellamy stopped laughing, he stopped cooking - he just stopped.  

 

“I’m fine Clarke.  You don’t have to check on me,” he said darkly after she’d ‘popped in’ for the third time in a week.  The fridge was empty and he was eating Oreos.  Bellamy was not fine.  

 

She threw herself down on the couch beside him, coveting an Oreo for herself.  “You want to talk about it?”

 

“No,” he said firmly, his stare focused square and unmoving on the television in front of him.  He had been flipping through the channels, stopping finally on an episode of the Cosmos and was now pretending to pay attention as Neil DeGrasse Tyson charted the stars.  

 

“You sure?” she tried again, but he didn’t answer.  He was good at this, making himself a fortress, rejecting the world before it could reject him.  After 10 more minutes, the bag of Oreos was empty, Clarke having tucked herself into the corner of the couch, watching as Bellamy stared expressionless and empty into the void.  It was strange to see him like this, even when Octavia and Clarke were parked in front of one of their favorite shows, Bellamy almost always read a book instead, unless they prodded him or bribed him with a documentary or classic film noir.  

 

Arching backwards, Clarke pushed her feet into Bellamy’s leg for leverage as she grabbed a notebook and pencil off the end table behind her.  He groaned in protest but it lacked heart, his arm coming down to rest on her bent knees and she’d settled with her feet still tucked up beside him.  

 

“What are you doing?” He asked without turning his head.  Clarke felt her lips slide into an easy smile but she didn’t respond.  She was drawing him.  And it wasn’t the first time.  Bellamy Blake, composed of contradictory soft and hard edges, the firm set of his jaw bumping up against the gentle slope of his chin.  He was dark lines and shadows set against the light twinkling in his eyes or reflecting off the smooth curve of his cheekbone.  He was all dimple and smarm, warmth and sadness.  

  
Clarke dotted his nose with freckles, a thousand constellations begging to be plotted and memorized.  She lingered over the dip in his chin, a place meant to be kissed, not drawn, if only she were brave.  But Clarke’s heart shied away from this new realization - the butterflies that erupted in her stomach when he was near, when she caught him looking at her, face open and smiling.  

 

This was _Bellamy_ \- the only person who could measure her up with a look, who could slay her with his honesty, who felt like home.  She didn’t want to see the empty skin lurking beneath those ridiculously flattering collared shirts he insisted on wearing, or the long sleeved henleys that clung to his silhouette like a shadow.  It couldn’t be him, even if she wanted it to be.    

 

“You’re staring at me.” Bellamy broke the silence, his voice flat.  

 

Clarke chuckled softly this time and held out the paper for his inspection.  “I’m not.  I’m drawing you.”

 

He regarded the portrait with a skeptical nod before handing it back to her.  “Barely looks like me.” His voice was cool but his expression was teasing and Clarke detected a small smile blooming in the corner of his mouth.  She kicked him with her foot but he caught her leg in the air, holding her fast by the ankle as she wiggled to break free, and the laughter was inevitable.

 

Clarke spent the rest of the night somehow balled up into the warmth of his side, his arm stretched out behind her, and she was caught between watching the television and the patterns of light it threw on Bellamy’s face.  And then quietly, more than a rumble than a sound, he said, “It doesn’t get easier - being the one who is left behind.”

 

Clarke tilted her head to look at him but his gaze was far off and unfocused.  “I know.”

 

***

 

The kitten was Octavia’s idea.  One of Lincoln’s relatives had a cat who’d given birth to six fluff balls, and for Bellamy, Octavia had chosen the black one.  It was a girl, of course, and the little thing was clumsy, with wide paws and a tail that looked as though it were dipped in white paint.

 

He pretended to be unimpressed as O shoved the furry creature in his face and forced him to name it.  But it batted playfully at his nose and he smiled in spite of himself.  “Minerva,” he said thoughtfully.  “But we’ll call her Minnie.”

 

But Minnie resembled her namesake only in her dedication to war, striking fear into the soul of any spider or insect and chasing anything that had the audacity to dangle.  She made a fast habit of shredding the toilet paper, chewing through all the phone charging cables, and sleeping on Bellamy’s face whenever given the opportunity.  

 

“Bellamy Blake, brought to his knees by a kitten,” Clarke needled, grinning as Minnie threw herself on top of the little red dot creeping across the carpet.  The kitten’s eyes widened when she saw it surface on her paws before darting away.  

 

Bellamy turned off the laser pointer and scooped Minnie into his palm to scratch behind her ears.  “Only a little.  Besides, you’re the one who has been cooing at her all morning.”   

 

Clarke smiled her concession and he liked the familiar way it settled on her face.  Clarke Griffin should always be smiling.  She’d stopped by early today, in her yoga pants, blonde hair still tangled into a knot at the back of her head, but this was how Bellamy liked her best.  Comfortable, sitting on his floor with his kitten and eating an omelet.  

 

“What am I going to do, Bellamy, if I fail this test?” She cried suddenly, rolling backwards to collapse on the floor and throwing her arms over her face.  

 

He snickered at her drama and folded his arms across his chest.  “I don’t know - stop this bullshit and do something you actually like?”

 

She glared at him and rolled back up to grab her plate before Minnie could sample the eggs.  Closing her eyes, she savored a bite and Bellamy did his best to hide the conquering grin stretching across his face.  He wasn’t sure if he should like it as much as he did, this fragile, contented feeling, if it was something he could keep.    

 

Bellamy cleared his throat, but the words came out awkward and rough anyway, bumping into one another as they rolled across his tongue.  “Do you believe in soulmates?”

 

She started slightly in surprise, looking up from her fork with amusement.  “ _You_ do?”

 

He faltered.  Fighting for nonchalance, his hand ran across the back of his neck and he shrugged.  “Yeah, it’s a stupid question.”  It was not a good recovery.  Clarke was watching him with concern chipping at the animation in her features, dulling the brightness of her eyes.  She was silent despite the question on her lips.  

 

A sudden crash and the moment shattered, Minnie diving from Bellamy’s desk to avoid an avalanche of books on their descent to the floor.  Clarke had disappeared to deposit her plate in the sink and soon a backpack was slung across her shoulders and she was heading for the door.  

 

“Bellamy?”  She turned as he wished her luck, her smile detached and distant.  “Whoever it is you’re looking for, you deserve to find her,” she said softly, the door latching with a click as it closed behind her.  

 

***

 

Octavia said the party was for Clarke’s graduation, but everybody knew better.  It was an excuse, really.  Between jobs and finals, they hadn’t come together like this since before Octavia moved in with Lincoln, and she used the opportunity to show off her new digs - and Lincoln had a deck.  

 

She’d strung paper lanterns overhead, the light from within casting everything in a warm glow.  Lincoln was a photographer, his work arranged artfully on the walls, pictures of textures and far off places capturing Clarke’s imagination as she stopped to stare at the image of lonely sands cut into curves by the wind.  

 

“So you’re staying, huh?”  Raven’s voice came from behind and Clarke turned to find her friend’s hand already on her hip, a smug grin sitting lopsided on her face.  

 

Clarke nodded.  “Yeah.  You guys are stuck with me a little longer, I’m afraid.”

 

She pressed a kiss to Clarke’s temple and slid an arm around her waist, long ponytail swinging to its own melody as it brushed against their skin.  “Good,” Raven said firmly.  Then she pulled away with a sardonic wink.  “ _Jasper and Monty_ would be a wreck without you, you know?”  There was a devious twinkle in her eye as she tilted her head in the direction of Bellamy, pulling Octavia into a brief hug as he came through the door.  

 

“Right,” Clarke returned, wryly but Raven only laughed, rubbing a hand on Clarke’s back before heading off to answer a pleading holler from Jasper who was locked helplessly outside on the deck while Monty and Miller snickered puckishly from the other side of the sliding glass door.

 

Octavia having retreated, Bellamy was left standing awkwardly in the entryway, surveying the space around him with hands buried deep in his pockets.  He looked startled when Clarke offered a simple, “Hey.”  It was like he’d been caught wandering in a place he shouldn’t have, his expression guilty and guarded.  

 

“Is this the first time you’ve been here?”  she asked with an encouraging smile, her hand coming to rest affectionately on his cloaked forearm.   

 

He answered with a nod and a deep, “Yeah”, pursing his lips as the silence settled in around them.  But it was enough.  Somehow they were beyond words, communicating volumes in a glance, revealing all but the secrets they most yearned to tell.  And when the grimness of his features faded, placated by alcohol and the laughter of good friends, Clarke rejoiced in this vision of him, the way they all became better versions of themselves under his influence.  

 

“A shot for every year you were in school!” Monty was shouting, his hand banging the table as Jaspar sloppily poured tequila into an uneven row of glasses.  

 

“What?  Me?”  When all eyes turned to her, Clarke fumbled.  “That’s four shots guys.  Four shots.  And I’m not a big person.”

 

Octavia appeared out of nowhere, reaching over to take swig from the open bottle and grinning like a menace.  “Don’t worry, Clarke.  Bell will take you home, right big brother?  This is a graduation party, remember?”  

 

They roared when she took the last shot, slamming the glass on the counter and roguishly wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand.  Then, taking a shot for himself, Murphy turned the music up and pushed them all outside.  

 

It was beautiful with the stars overhead and the lanterns swinging in the slight breeze, their light settling gently on shadowed features.  The alcohol had done it’s work, relaxing the muscles in Clarke’s shoulders and blurring everything around the edges.  She was dancing, first with Raven, then with Octavia.  She remembered the soft radiance of the moon against Bellamy’s cheeks and the flush that appeared there when she whispered he was gorgeous.  

 

“Ok, Princess,” his voice boomed at the edge of her consciousness as he became all hard edges and collected her limbs to throw her against his side for support.  “Let’s get you home.”

“But _you_ are home,” she slurred as he loaded her into the car and she slouched against the passenger’s seat, not too drunk to miss the dimple when he smiled.

 

***

He should have taken her home.  That much was clear.  But his apartment was closer and she’d been whining about wanting to wake up to Minnie and pancakes instead of her empty cave.  And with those eyes and that smile - how could he resist?  

 

Clarke kicked off her shoes almost immediately, cursing them as though they were the primary force behind her stumbling ascent up the stairs, and giggled her way to the fridge, hair falling in her eyes as she leaned forward to grab a muffin off the counter.  

 

“Jesus, Bellamy, what is this, bran?  Is there anything you can’t make taste fucking delicious?”

 

He laughed and filled a glass of water as she popped the last morsel in her mouth with a satisfied smack.  It was probably good she was eating, he figured, to absorb the alcohol with which their friends had soaked her small frame.  After the four shots, the girls had also managed to empty the better part of a bottle of vodka, and then Bellamy had lost track.   

 

It was dangerous, the way her hands searched for him in the crowd, scraping at his sides as she moved and persuaded him to dance.  Her intoxicating nearness that entire night had driven him to distraction and here she was, blocking the exit to his kitchen and complimenting his cooking.  

 

“Octavia’s room is still empty, but I can sleep on the floor in there,” he was explaining casually, one hand braced on the counter while the other gestured to the bedrooms beyond.  He didn’t dare meet her gaze, the truth so close to the surface now, like the pictures she left on his skin.  

 

But she slowly crept forward, seeping into his vision until she came to a stop, paused in the space of his arms with her hands poised at the line of his jaw.  They hovered, fingers fluttering nervously, his eyes finally finding hers before he pressed an ardent kiss into her palm and pulled back.  There was a sharp intake of breath and he froze - and she was reaching up to cup the back of his neck, drawing him downward to meet his lips with her own.  

 

It began achingly soft, tentative and exploratory, a whisper of shared breath.  But Clarke ran her tongue across his bottom lip, begging for entrance, and he sank his hands into her hair, cradling her head in the curve of his arms as he kissed and kissed her.  

 

He was a flame, and she was oxygen, setting him ablaze as she melted against him and pressed her hands into his chest.  No longer shy, the movement of their mouths grew desperate, all consuming.  Her teeth nibbled at his bottom lip and he broke free, planting kisses on her cheeks, on her eyelids, at the juncture between her neck and her jaw.  

 

Impatient, she pulled him back to meet her, breathless as she tangled her fingers in the jersey of his shirt.  She tasted like tequila and sugar.  Like a promise he couldn’t keep.  When she dipped her hands beneath his shirt, he pulled away suddenly, catching himself.

 

“Clarke -” his voice came out rough and heated and she stared at him as he backed away.  Her hair was mussed, her lips looking red and thoroughly kissed, and it took all of him to remember this was Clarke, his friend, the girl who deserved something great.  Something more than a drunken kiss after a long night.   

 

Bellamy swept a hand through his hair and suggested they get some rest.  

 

“You’re drunk and this -” he tried to explain.  “It can’t happen like this.”

 

Clarke nodded mechanically and he dared to move back into her space, steering her toward the bedroom with a cautious hand at her back.  He ignored the heat of her skin under his fingers, the restless urge to trace the patterns he knew hid beneath her shirt, to kiss the trail of words and pictures that covered her body.  But her surprise at the abrupt nature of his retreat had dissolved into a heavy lidded sleepiness and he rolled her into bed, tucking her in under the sheets and leaving a tall glass of water on the nightstand.  

 

“Bellamy?” she called as he flipped off the light.  “Thanks.”

 

He nodded, grateful to the darkness for hiding the raw way he looked at her, curled in his sheets, in his bed.  “Goodnight, Princess.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple things:
> 
> 1) I have been completely humbled and amazed by the response to this so far! You are all incredible *kisses you all on your beautiful faces*  
> Your comments and kudos are the breath in my lungs - and your support is so incredibly appreciated. I hope *fingers crossed* this chapter was everything you were hoping for.
> 
> 2) I thought I was done with this chapter about 4 days ago but it kept GROWING. So yeah, anyway, know that I'm working away and that if I think the next update will happen in a week, that probably means two ;)


	3. Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this was so long in coming! Special thanks to AmandaRex for being the yin to my yang for all things kissing related!

Clarke woke enveloped in light and warmth, still peaceful with the weight of alcohol in her bones.  It was a process, her eyelids slowly lifting, her body hesitantly righting itself as she fought to negate the throbbing behind her eyes and the oppressive burden of gravity on her shoulders.  But finally she squinted and sat up to tear herself from the warm embrace of Bellamy’s bed.

 

Clarke had never been in his room before, not properly anyway, and although small, it vibrated with him, occupied with a ferocity only Bellamy Blake could achieve.

 

Lopsided piles of books stacked around the edges, their covers worn and pages familiar - desk littered with semi-organized piles of notes and pens, a novelty Homer finger puppet propped against one corner - a picture of Octavia on his battered dresser in a cheap black frame - his reading glasses, inky black to match his hair, sitting on the nightstand beside the large glass of water he’d so kindly left her the night before -

  
  


The space lived and breathed and smelled of him, like coffee and warm vanilla, soap and sky.  

 

Waking up in his bed had somehow felt as natural as anything, like curling up in the crook of his arm or resting her head on his shoulder.  And kissing him . . .

 

She could still feel the burn of his lips against hers, his fingers in her hair, his breath hot on her cheek.  Bellamy had kissed her until she was boneless, until she melted into his arms and clung to him like a raft in a storm of their own making.  

 

He’d pulled away, his face a haggard contradiction, like he was half gone but desperate to come back.  “It can’t happen like this,” he’d said, raking a hand through his hair.  Could he taste it on her tongue?  The unspoken lie?  A  love torn in half?      

 

Clarke had tried to ignore it, the pull of his gravity, to stop sinking into his touch or craving the deep song of his voice.  She tried not to ignite from the heat of their arguments, not to lean into the intensity of their differing opinions and revel in the way it lit him on fire.  She tried not to notice all the details that added up to him and him only.

 

Because Bellamy Blake was as much a part of her as the words on her skin.  He was that song on the radio to which she’d unconsciously begun singing, he was the rhythm prompting her feet to tap against her will.  Because how could anyone so fierce be so gentle?

 

But it was too late.  Her kiss was a broken promise.     

 

As Clarke tugged herself to her feet, stomach rolling at the effort, Minnie pushed into the room, her tiny paws scraping against the wooden door as it swung open.  She was purring, her long, lanky form twining Clarke’s legs while she meowed for attention, and Clarke knelt down to scratch behind the kitten’s ears, pressing the tears back from her eyes.

 

The smell of pancakes drifted in from the kitchen (because of course he would make pancakes - Bellamy, all softness behind sharp edges, who left her awed by his kindness and breathless by his kisses) and she found him leaning over the skillet, in that ridiculous apron, long hair hanging in his face, with the sort of grin that was only betrayed by his eyes.  He flipped a pancake onto a plate and handed it to her.  

 

“How’d you sleep?” he asked wistfully, as he grabbed her a fork.  Blueberry.  The bastard had made her favorite.  

 

“Good, thanks,” she replied, her voice stalling, and his smile waxed artificial.  In the space of a breath, everything had shifted.   And Clarke suddenly felt cold.  “Listen, Bellamy, about last night -”

 

“Don’t worry about it,” he cut her off, his eyes escaping to the stove, but his shoulders had already adjusted themselves in dismissal.  “We’d both had a lot to drink.”

 

Clarke bit her lip, breaking the skin just enough to taste iron.  But words. . .  If only she could paint it for him instead - the way she craved his balance of dark and light.  If she could capture the bark of his laugh in yellows or the deep red of his heartbeat.  If she could find the exact shade of the shadows that haunted him, the blues and blacks that lingered like a battle scar. 

 

But he had left her no time for pictures, his expression agonizingly neutral as he pulled out a ziploc bag and began slipping pancakes inside.  His words had closed a door.    

 

So Clarke just nodded, resigned and silent, dragging her fork through a breakfast that now tasted impossibly bittersweet.  She could feel Bellamy watching her, all guarded intensity played off with a shrug.  His jaw, clenched tight behind the mask he was trying so hard to present, it almost broke her.  Clarke longed to cradle his face in her hands and kiss and kiss him until the worry faded, to ignore the brands on her body, the part of her heart that beat for another, and wrap herself up in the potential of this moment - the Clarke and Bellamy who could have laughed, limbs tangled and bellies swollen with pancakes, bodies pressed together almost as fervently as their lips.         

 

But this Bellamy had his back turned, the silence between them only broken by the clatter of dishes he was artlessly throwing in the sink.  

 

The tension eased when Minnie jumped on Bellamy’s leg to scale all the way to his shoulder, Clarke snickering weakly at the way the small creature was determined to chew on his unruly hair.  He turned to tease her like normal about the lake of syrup on her plate and she went to prod him in the chest with her fork and it almost felt like before.  Except that it didn’t.  

 

***

 

The script faded faster this time and was not replaced, the mocking emptiness of her bare skin confronting Clarke with every turn.  It felt appropriate somehow.  Like a punishment.  

 

It was as though he knew she was no longer satisfied with the cosmetic nature of their relationship, as though he could tell what was written had lost its potency in favor of a voice, rough and low - what was drawn passed over for dark waves and freckles that charted cheeks like stars.  Her heart had chosen something real over what was not and Clarke didn’t know how, but he  _ knew _ .  Words and pictures would never be enough.    

 

Clarke let her pens rest in the drawer of her bedside table.  She stopped searching for signs of him, stopped trying to win his attention by drawing ridiculous pictures in conspicuous places.  

 

She let him go.

 

***

Bellamy knew he shouldn’t have hoped.  He’d told himself as he lay awake, the taste of her still on his tongue.  He’d warned himself as he jumped out of bed the following morning to make pancakes, secretly feeding it right up until that moment, really, the one where Clarke looked at him, face painted with the worst kind of regret, her voice arresting in her throat as she was about to call their kiss a mistake.  

 

All he’d done was give her the out she’d wanted.  It was the least he could do.  

 

Because it was different for him.  Falling in love with Clarke Griffin.  It had been inevitable, unavoidable in the way a song wants a crescendo.  But for her, Bellamy wanted choice.  She shouldn’t be tethered to him like Psyche to Eros, bound to a ghost.  She should be free.  Even if it meant she didn’t choose him.  

 

His skin blazed bright red under the sting of the scalding water, the ink on his arms, his legs, fading under the insistence of the soap and anger.  That’s how it went for Bellamy, raw emotion defaulting to self disgust and refining itself into rage.  

 

He bought a punching bag, installed it in the ceiling of Octavia’s old bedroom.  The upstairs neighbors complained, but he didn’t care, he’d needed something.  He needed an outlet.  Like a violin string wound too tight, he was about to snap. And he did.  Often.

 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Octavia snapped back as he barked at her for standing in his path to Miller’s fridge.  It was the third dinner gathering Clarke had missed.  Not that he was counting.  But even her absence couldn’t keep her from lurking in the corner of his vision, forcing him to turn his head at every promise of sunlight.    

 

“Just stop making yourself an obstacle,” he growled in response.  Octavia had scoffed and pushed past him, muttering something like, “Get over yourself,” as she passed.  

 

It didn’t matter.  He knew they were all giving him space, casting him sideways glances whenever Clarke’s name was mentioned.  

But Bellamy knew what they didn’t.  Everybody, even Clarke Griffin, moved on eventually.  

 

***

 

There must be a difference between avoidance and cowardice, Clarke thought (she tells herself she’s not afraid), but when Octavia texted to invite her out to the bar she found herself feigning exhaustion.  When Raven called to recruit her for a group hiking trip, Clarke found herself picking up extra volunteer hours at the hospital.  

 

And she missed them, Raven’s bad puns and Jasper’s inability to control the volume of his own voice.  She missed the way Miller looked at Monty like he hung the moon and the way Octavia burned twice as bright with Lincoln by her side.  Clarke even missed Murphy and his particular brand of acerbic ambivalence.  

 

That she missed Bellamy the most was clear.  She ached from it.  She stopped inviting herself to his apartment, stopped texting him pictures when she was bored, stopped calling him at night when she couldn’t sleep.  Clarke couldn’t eat without dreaming of his hands preparing the food, she couldn’t laugh without his bad jokes.  

She wanted to be numb.  So she avoided him.   

 

It was how she met Lexa, the director of the summer art camp Clarke was running for elementary school students.  She was structure in Clarke’s tumultuous world, she was stoicism in the face of Clarke’s demons.  Lexa’s love was reverence and it all was all consuming, exactly what Clarke needed - until it wasn’t.    

 

Until it had been weeks since she’d talked to her friends, since she’d been home.  Until she didn’t recognize herself in the mirror, new hair, new makeup.  Until the rush of Lexa’s attention no longer filled the hole where her heart used to be.  One day she woke up and the air was too thin, the walls too close.  Lexa begged her not to go, but Clarke had always stood with one foot out the door.

 

For the first time in a long time, Clarke Griffin was alone.

 

***

 

It was high summer and hot.  So hot.  Bellamy had already fixed his own air conditioner twice, Raven leaning over his shoulder as he went, tsking and offering free advice.  When Octavia called and bribed him to look at hers in exchange for a six pack and the promise to hang out afterwards, he hadn’t expected to find himself sweating despite the shade of the porch, paintbrush in hand, repainting a bookshelf while Octavia sanded a thrift store dresser behind him.  It was just like her, though, never satisfied without purpose - even family time was meant to be productive.   

 

“That air conditioner you fixed is going to feel so good when we’re done out here, isn’t it big brother?” she said with a smile, her tone playful and light.  It was something he was still getting used to, Octavia Blake happy.  She’d always buzzed with the energy of someone not quite satisfied, like her eye was always on the horizon waiting for the next sunrise.  But lately she was almost lazy, contented and occupied with projects around the house.  She'd finally stopped running.  

 

“I don’t know, O.  This might be the worst time I’ve spent with anyone in a while,” he scowled.  And then, more sarcastically, “Why not paint furniture in 100 degree heat?”

 

Octavia rolled her eyes.  “Drama queen.  If you can’t handle it, go take a break.”  She was dripping herself, hair pulled back in braids with sweat glistening on her forehead.  “Remember that summer we baked cookies in Mom’s car because it was so hot?”

 

Bellamy grinned.  “Yeah, they were terrible.  Cookies are supposed to brown as they cook, not just solidify like some kind of non newtonian fluid.”  

 

There was a dusting of laughter and Octavia paused to stand and measure her progress.  “You think you’ll be ready to have a go at this one when you’re done?”  Her tone was only half joking.  

 

Bellamy quirked an eyebrow, smoothing the red paint he’d just applied to a shelf.  It was nice, laughing again, snarking with his sister instead of exploding at her.  She’d been patient with him (well, patient for Octavia) while he ‘dealt with his bullshit’ (her words), but he’d secretly smiled when he checked his phone in the mornings to see her daily reminders to eat, to rest, and not be a dick.  Perhaps he was not the only mother hen in the family.    

 

When they heard movement from inside, she straightened and dropped her sandpaper. “That must be Lincoln.”

 

Bellamy didn’t look up as the glass door closed behind her, but it wasn’t Lincoln’s voice overlapping with his sisters.  A  breath caught in his throat.

 

Octavia slid the door open and stuck her head out.  “Hey, Bell.  Clarke’s here.  Take a break and come in.”

 

“Just going to finish this coat,” he said darkly.  He didn’t want the paint to dry on the brush, he told himself.  He was pushing the bristles into the corner, stuffing pigment into every crack, when he heard the door open again and she was entering his space.  Tentative, just at his shoulder.

 

“It’s looking really good,” came Clarke’s voice, light with it’s familiar layer of coarseness.  

 

“Thanks.”

 

Silence.  

 

Clarke started again.  “I told Octavia I might come by to drop off some extra rags I had laying around.  She’s becoming quite the homemaker, isn’t she?”  Her tone was gentle, too cautious to be teasing.  She was trying.  

 

Bellamy turned to see Clarke’s soft smile, her hair spun to gold in the sunlight.  She was looking at him in that way she had, the same one she’d given Minnie to coax her out at the vet, like she was trying to tame a lion.    

 

He conceded.  “Yeah.  Don’t tell her that though.  She’ll just insists she likes a good project.”  

 

Bellamy stared at the ground, smearing red on his t-shirt as he moved a hand to anxiously sweep through his hair.  Awkwardness had settled between them again and he reapplied the paintbrush, the soft tap of the fiber against wood echoing against the persistent quiet.  He almost thought he heard a sigh.  

 

“It’s good to see you.”  It was barely a whisper, soft and almost sad, but Bellamy didn’t look up.  He didn’t want to do this.  He didn’t want to see the apology she was carrying in the furrow of her brow or in the slant of her shoulders.   _ I’m sorry for avoiding you _ .   _ I’m sorry for disappearing. _

 

He just shook his head, gaze trained to the fence at his right as he murmured, “Yeah.”  

 

Octavia popped out onto the deck.  “Take a break, Blake!” she shouted, already revived by the short burst of of cool air from the air conditioner outside.  “Lincoln’s bought fruit for Sangria.  Let’s rehydrate.”  

 

Clarke’s lips twisted into an amused grin as she caught his eye and he almost returned it.  Bellamy couldn’t say it, not yet, but it was good to see her too.

 

***

 

It was subtle, like the tilt of the earth on it’s axis, but Clarke couldn’t help but feel the distortion like a tangible entity, hanging on every almost sentence, every almost glance.  She sat cross legged in her usual fashion, slouched over the bar with her head resting in an open palm, but the space across her was mostly vacant.  Occasionally Bellamy would pop in to refill a drink, but the conversation never really stuck, his grin didn’t slide lopsided into place with its usual smarm.  Everything just felt - polite?

 

Shaking her head, Clarke gave up and padded over to the booth where Raven was waving a drink at Jasper in frustration before tilting it back and welcoming Clarke onto her lap.

“To what do we owe the pleasure?” Jasper exclaimed with mocking good humor, “Is Bellamy boring you over there?”  

 

Clarke’s smile was made of glass.  “No, I just - I wanted to see what Reyes here was all fired up about.”  

 

Raven smiled up at her, beaming with cheeks tinted red by alcohol, and wove her arms affectionately around Clarke’s waist.  “Jasper here thinks Billy Jean is the best Michael Jackson song, but it’s obviously Thriller.”

 

Clarke laughed, comforted in the warm circle of Raven’s embrace.  She’d leaned her chin on Clarke’s shoulder, waggling her eyebrows at Jasper and Clarke could feel the vibration of her friend’s soul against her side, fierce and hot and alive.   And for a moment, surrounded by friends and spirited arguments about nothing, Clarke could forget about the dull ache in her chest.  

 

Octavia popped off to the bar to retrieve another round of shots, trading a nod with Bellamy who accepted the unspoken request in a way only siblings can.  He was so handsome, even in the mock seriousness with which he was placating his sister, and Clarke couldn’t help but notice the way the sleeves of his burgundy button up were rolled to his elbows, forearms glistening gold under the soft yellow lighting (the same light that danced in his eyes, but he only looked through her).  

 

An hour later when they all stumbled out the door, arms swung lazily around shoulders, Jasper singing the wrong lyrics to Uptown Funk, Clarke pretended he watched her go, cold where the phantom of his gaze failed to burn.  

 

***

 

Clarke and Abby had always been like oil and water, or perhaps more like two opposite poles of a magnet - just similar enough in all the wrong ways.  Clarke was cursing her, fleeing the restaurant with tears stinging at the back of her eyes, anesthetized to the rain that slung in her face and the way it seeped through her clothing.  

 

“Clarke,” her mother had said, in that clinical tone she used, which at it’s best only sounded condescending, “You are wasting your time with this art program when you could be be actually helping people.” 

 

“Art does help people,” she’d retorted, haughtily.  

 

But things had only gone downhill from there, Abby’s voice pulled taught and raised two octaves,  oscillating between lecture and reprimand.  “You could save lives, Clarke, and instead, you live in a dive, piecing together income from a bunch dead end jobs.  When the novelty wears off, where will you be?”

 

Clarke had rolled her eyes.  “I will be happy, Mom.  Being the people I love instead of abandoning them to save the lives of strangers.”

 

She could tell her words had stung, Abby recoiled bit and let her fork drop against her plate with a metallic clang.  Her voice was cold, her face etched in stone.  “That’s not fair.” 

 

Clarke responded with a scoff and guileless shake of her head as she leaned back in her chair, palms pressed against the starched cotton of the tablecloth.  “None of this is fair.”    

The food tasted bitter in Clarke’s mouth, like missed birthday parties and an empty house.  Her mother reached for the bill and Clarke hadn’t even turned around to catch Abby’s expression when she turned and fled, her phone lighting up a moment later, but Clarke turned it off.  

 

The rain blended with hot tears, her breath escaping in puffs as she stumbled through the city, too destroyed to go home.  Where was home anyway?  It wasn’t her apartment, cold and empty and decorated with the evidence of her unfulfilled potential.  Home lived between two broad shoulders and under the warmth of two dark eyes - Bellamy, in his plaid pajama bottoms, sprawled on the couch with a book in his lap, glasses teetering on his nose while he teased her for channel surfing.  He was the closest she’d felt to home since her father died, someone who listened, who let her just  _ be.   _  And she missed him.  

 

Her heart may have been in denial, but Clarke’s feet had made their choice.  She could hear Minnie’s eager bleating as she fit the key in the lock and pushed open the door, flicking on a light to fill the empty apartment.  Everything was the same, Bellamy’s shoes stacked haphazardly in the corner, a gray hoodie draped casually over the threadbare armchair.  He’d left his glasses on the coffee table next to a coffee mug and a worn copy of the Odyssey, and it all looked so unmoved that Clarke curled up in his spot on the couch with a pilfered bottle of tequila, half expecting it to still be warm. 

 

She didn’t notice when her eyelids began to feel heavy except for when strong hands were unfurling her limbs, forcing her to recline as they smoothed a blanket over her wearied body.  

 

“Bellamy?” she called out, eyes half closed as she sunk deeper against the cushions.  She felt him freeze by her side, his large form still bent slightly from tucking her in.  He’d turned off the overhead light, probably to help her sleep, and he was eclipsed by the glow from the hall, haloed like a dream.   

 

***

 

When Bellamy awoke the next morning, he half expected her to be gone, like the kiss they both pretended never happened.  He’d been surprised to say the least, coming home after his shift to see light bleeding into the hall from beyond his apartment door, Clarke asleep on his couch with his cat tucked happily into her shoulder.  

 

But padding into the kitchen, bleary eyed and yawning, he’d discovered her,  sitting at his table with her bare legs crossed, engulfed by one of his oversized sweaters while she worked the crossword and chewed on the end of his pen.

 

“Coffee is in the carafe on the counter,” she announced casually, like this wasn’t the first time she’d been in his apartment for months, like this was normal.  

 

“I’m going to pretend you’re doing that in pencil,” he replied dryly, his voice still rough and layered with sleep.  A cluck of laughter escaped Clarke’s throat and she looked up at him as she thumbed the ball point wickedly.  She was still beautiful, made somehow more so by the disheveled state of her hair unraveling from it’s loose pile on top of her head and the morning light that caught in her eyes and danced.  

 

Bellamy slid into the seat perpendicular, taking the paper into his hand and groaning at the overlapping blue letters and doodles she’d left there.  She was grinning, pleased with herself and leaning roguishly back in her chair.

 

“You’re terrible at crosswords,” he deadpanned and it was her giggle that forced his hand, brought a smile to his lips and made him finally raise his eyes to hers.  

 

“I’m sorry for breaking and entering,” Clarke said, suddenly cautious again, the ease of the moment gone.  Her fingers were idly tracing the rim of the cracked blue coffee mug, her eyes pinned to the rising steam.  

 

“Well, that would be a first,” he chided and she was smiling again - wide and real and he cursed his traitorous heart for racing, like waking up to Clarke Griffin was something he could get used to.  “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

 

Clarke’s eyebrows shot up and she pressed her lips together guiltily.  “I had dinner with my mom.  We fought.  I ran.  You know, the usual.”  Her tone was wry but sad, fingers still busy but now with the corner of the placemat.  She was biting her lip, anxious, like someone about to bolt.  

 

“Afterwards, I just - I dunno, I found myself here.”  There was an anemic shrug of the shoulders, accompanied by a shaky smile and Bellamy found himself tensing from the inside out.  No matter how high he built his walls, Clarke would just walk through them, like the ghost he’d thought she was when she’d first left her flowers on his skin.  

 

“You’re going to have to stop running eventually,” he said.  The kitchen had taken on the muted quality of a lazy morning, the distant echo of car horns and traffic drifting in through open windows.  

 

Clarke gave a soft nod.  “I know.”

 

***

 

Bellamy Blake had run out of patience.  To say the group of meatheads at the end of the bar had been leering at Raven was an understatement.  Their unwelcome attention had come in the form of catcalls and jeers, undeterred by her steely gaze or Bellamy’s near constant requests that they ‘leave it.”  

 

He’d seen this brand of reptile before, drunk on entitlement and emboldened with power.  About the time one of them ‘tripped’ into Raven’s lap with searching hands, Bellamy could barely see for rage.  

 

“Out,” he directed, walking around the bar to escort them to the exit.  When they refused to move, his voice grew louder and people were starting to stare.  ‘Get the fuck out of my bar!” he yelled.  

 

He started grabbing them by the elbow, yanking them violently toward the exit while they cursed at him - “What the fuck, man?”  

 

It wasn’t until he’d shoved them out onto the sidewalk, the cold night air breaking through the fury that he sensed it, the current of electricity running through the pack of miscreants, the way they fanned out and encircled him.  

 

The first blow came from behind, and then another and another.  Bellamy’s fist connected with a few faces, but there were too many of them.  He heard shouting, the sound of soles against pavement as they scampered away, and he lay in a heap on the ground, his lungs too sore to breathe and his mouth dripping blood.  

 

Was it Raven’s form he saw swimming in front of him, her voice calling for help?  He felt cool hands on his forehead, someone pulling his head into their lap, brushing at the hair plastered to his skin, and everything went black.

 

***

 

At first Clarke could only stare at the bruises blooming across her ribs in disgusting purple and yellow blotches.  The one around her eye was particularly puce, stretching from her eyebrow down over her cheek bone.  

 

Then the realization hit.

 

Clarke scrambled for her pens, hands shaking as she fought to uncap one and scrawl -  _ What happened?  Are you Ok? _ \- into her palm.  No response.  

 

She blew out a frustrated puff of air, pacing in front of her mirror as she mentally catalogued the injuries and speculated the internal damage.   _ Car accident? _  No, too localized, the bruising was too specific.  Her knuckles were red, discolored in violence.  If anything, it looked like he’d been in a fight.  

 

Clarke found herself curled in a ball on her bed, tears finally unleashed as she swore at the reckless boy who could write about love but not avoid pain.  She was 8 all over again, worried for him and covered in the signature of his storm.  

 

Octavia froze when she saw Clarke hunched over their usual table at the coffee shop, hair left loose to hang in her face.  She’d tried concealer to hide the bruising, but somehow it only became more conspicuous.

 

“Clarke, what the hell happened to you?” Octavia asked, her fingers delicately pushing back Clarke’s blond waves and ghosting over the discolored skin beneath.  

 

“It’s nothing.  I know it looks terrible, it’s just this skin anomaly I’ve had since I was a kid.”  Clarke tried to play it off casually, but Octavia’s eyes were blown wide with intrigue like there was a question on her lips she wasn’t sure how to form.    

 

“It looks like you’ve been in a fight,” she whispered, her voice strange as she pulled back to take in a picture of Clarke’s entire face.  “Let me guess, bruising along your ribs? Especially on your right side?”

 

Clarke was stunned.  “Yeah, how’d you know?”

 

Settling into the chair opposite, Octavia’s awed expression was bending into something more calculating, her lips pressed together in a thoughtful line.  “Honestly, I thought he made it up,” she muttered softly, almost as if to herself.

 

“What?  Who?”  Clarke asked, confused, and this time the spell seemed to break and Octavia was left blinking at her from over her paper coffee cup.

 

“Oh nothing.  You know, just making conversation,” her friend covered, her voice suspiciously casual.  Octavia took a quick swig of her beverage and slapped it with unnecessary force on the table.  “So Bellamy got into a fight last night.”

 

Clarke felt her pulse quicken and the words spilled out almost without prompting.  “What?  Is he okay?  What happened?”

 

Octavia shrugged, unaffected.  “Just a bar fight, although he would tell you he was defending Raven’s honor.”  She paused artificially and raised an eyebrow.  “He used to get into a lot of them as a kid, but it’s been a while.”

 

The sentence hung in the air, echoing in Clarke’s ears as Octavia watched her, curious, from across the table.  And it clicked into place.  

 

Bellamy, with a black eye and bruises across his ribs, mostly on the right side - the fragile hope Clarke had always been wise to ignore stirring somewhere deep.  Because it was impossible.  He would have seen the drawings on her arms.  He would have  _ said _ something.  

 

Clarke’s voice came out low and almost disconnected, the words forming themselves slowly and full of bite.  “Octavia, what are you talking about?”

 

Her answering shrug was infuriating in the way only a Blake could achieve as she tipped her coffee back and smiled cheekily.  “I think you’d better talk to my brother.”  

 

***

 

The subway was inordinately slow and surprisingly empty.  Clarke felt like she was waiting for the lottery with a losing ticket, bracing herself for disappointment while simultaneously tracing the designs she’d inked onto her arms.  Because the bruising wasn’t enough.  She had to  _ know _ .  

 

What surprised her was the fear, the shake in her knee and tremble in her hands.  When the train stopped she had to force herself onto the platform, coaxing leaden limbs up to the street to make her way to his apartment. Her brain was doubt on repeat, questioning all the details she’d collected to give weight to a now desperately held belief -  _ What will you do when you find out you are wrong? _

 

Clarke wobbled in front of his door, trying to focus and not be charmed by the sound of his deep baritone escaping from the other side.  Bellamy was singing to the radio, loud and only slightly off-key, his voice fading in and out like he was in motion.  He was always in motion.  

 

Her sharp knocks were accompanied by the silence of a radio turned off, then the metallic fumbling of a deadbolt sliding out of place.  Given her own appearance, Clarke wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but the sight of Bellamy, lip split, face purple with a gash sliced across his cheekbone, caused her to gasp as she stumbled into his apartment, fingers already busy inspecting the damage.  

 

“I’m fine, Clarke, really,” he countered, pulling away, but his expression wrung dumbfounded as he took in her bruises and it was his turn to let fingers fly to her face, scooping her chin into his palm as he brushed a thumb against her cheek.  His eyes were as dark as she’d ever seen them, penetrating with their intensity, until he blinked, drawing back and stuffing hands into his pockets, ducking his head to hide behind his hair.  

 

“Bellamy.”  His name felt so delicate on her tongue, she almost choked on it.  “Roll up your sleeves.”

 

He wouldn’t look at her as she guided his hands from their prison, folding back fabric to reveal the flowers underneath.  Clarke held his arm against her own, following the identical marks with her index finger, and he sniffed, tears dripping from his cheeks.  His hand had gone limp in hers, his features resigned as his voice cut through the deafening buzz in her ears.  Bruises and flowers, beauty and pain -wasn’t that how it had always been with them?  

 

“Clarke, I’m sorry.  I’m sorry it had to be me.”

 

Bellamy’s head was bowed, eyes locked on the evidence painted so clearly in front of him, and his voice was strained against the silence, all rough edges.  Glass in a wound she hadn’t realized was there.  Was that what he’d thought?  That she would be disappointed?

 

And she laughed, Bellamy starting with surprise at the grin that threatened to split her in half.  It was a laugh of shock, of relief, of joy, and soon tears were welling up in the corners of Clarke’s eyes, her head tilted back, cackling with the ridiculousness of it all.  That she had found him without wanting to find him.  That it could have only ever been Bellamy from the start.  

 

She pulled him forward to wrap his arms around her waist, lips seeking his, but not shy this time.  Bellamy’s response was hungry and he slid his hand up to cradle the back of her head, groaning as her tongue sought to infiltrate his mouth.  Clarke was drinking him in, savoring the taste, the warmth of his mouth, the urgency of his kisses.  He was a replacement for the air in her lungs, his teeth tugging at her bottom lip, grazing her chin, her neck.  They crashed together like waves against a shore, bold fingers tugging at clothing only to be swept away in the collision of their bodies, like they couldn’t decide what was more important, their progress or their proximity.  

 

Breathless and panting, Bellamy paused, laying their foreheads together, his lips swollen and red from use.  Another mark she’d left on him, she thought with satisfaction.  He looked so young, suddenly, exposed, like she had seen into the worst parts of him and yet still come back.  

 

“Bellamy.”  Clarke loved saying his name.  It was almost a chant, a poem like the ones he used to scribble between her thighs.  “I wanted it to be you. ”

 

And he smiled.  Bellamy smiled in a way that threatened to wreck her, lopsided like a snarky crescent-moon, the kind he saved for when he was least aware.  It was a smile that was reflected in every angle of his face, that shone from his eyes as he tucked her jaw into the palm of his hand and hesitated, reluctant to lose this moment, before capturing her mouth with his own.  

 

It was different this time, deeper, dangerous and Clarke rolled to the balls of her feet, igniting like she was gunpowder and he was a match.  She busied her fingers with his buttons, sliding her hands under his shirt to press against the firmness of the skin beneath.  Bellamy winced at the contact and chuckled, rough and capricious, and he wove his arms around her thighs as she wrapped them around his waist.  

  
Her fear had been replaced by the gentle tug of home and his hands on her body.  There was no holding back, not anymore, and Clarke finally understood the direction in which she had always been running.  The race was over but  this wasn’t the end, Clarke thought.  This was the beginning. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's it! I hope you liked it! This was the most fun I've had writing in a while and I am so incredibly thankful to each and every one of you who took the time to leave kudos and comments. I just have no words. You're all amazing. 
> 
> I'm on tumblr if you want to chat! (OMG or cry about last night's episode. I don't think I'm going to survive the week) I'm @lettertoelise

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you are enjoying reading this as much as I've been enjoying writing it! Thanks for giving me a chance!


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